The ubiquitous presence of cell phones in our society is universal. It is estimated that there are as many as 6 billion cell phone subscribers on the planet with a population of 7 billion people. Approximately 1 billion of those cell phones are smartphones, and that number is projected to double by 2015. The technological advances found in smartphones continue to become standard features e.g., cameras, Bluetooth, GPS, touch screens, and WiFi are now commonplace in smartphones. While the functionality of smartphones increases, the costs of purchasing such a mobile device continue to decrease. Similarly, other mobile devices including tablets and laptops have shown ever increasing functionality at lower cost.
Concurrently, live program broadcasts via radio, digital radio, satellite radio, webcasts, television, and HDTV are improving in quality and format across platforms. The networks and components for delivering the live program broadcast continue to improve in quality and functionality as well. However, a user's relationship to the live program broadcast remains static. That is, the user watches or listens to the live program broadcast but does little more. There is little or no interaction between the live program broadcast and the user, except for some live program broadcasts that ask users to call a phone number, email, text, or Tweet in their vote for a particular television show's contestant. Additionally, the user may visit the television show's website to cast their vote.
The interaction between the user and the live program broadcast, if any, is cumbersome at best. Today's user must divert his attention from the live program broadcast to dial a phone number that is provided, open an email or SMS application, access their Twitter account to Tweet, or type in the provided URL to interact with the live program broadcast. The cumbersome steps required to interact are a deterrent to a user's participation with the live program broadcast.
With the current cumbersome steps available to users, there is a need for a system that provides a true interactive experience for a user. Thus, a system is needed that will enable a user to quickly and easily interact with a live program broadcast in order to access specific content associated with that live program broadcast at that particular point in the broadcast.